1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging device, an imaging method and a program for performing imaging in synchronization with another device.
2. Related Art
Recently, digital cameras have become capable of successive imaging at high frame rates, exceeding 100-1000 fps (frames per second). In some cases, a digital camera performs successive imaging at one of these high frame rates in synchronization with another digital camera. In such a case, for frames captured by the successive imaging to be captured with matching timings by the different digital cameras, the digital cameras must be synchronized with one another to a precision between a hundredth of a second and a thousandth of a second.
However, when signals that synchronize imaging timings are exchanged between plural digital cameras, errors of more than a hundredth of a second occur between transmission times identified by a transmission side camera and reception times identified by a reception side camera. If plural digital cameras are synchronized by respective built-in quartz clocks with an accuracy of around 15 seconds per month, differences arise at around 0.02 seconds per hour.
A technology has been proposed (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2002-344800) in which a light detector and a signal controller are provided at each of imaging devices or each except one of imaging devices. The light detector detects a flash light emission, and the signal controller initializes the timing of frame synchronization signals in response to the detection of the flash light emission. Thus, using the flash light emission as a cue, imaging operations of all the imaging devices are synchronized.